Health

This study explores the role of domestic politics in China’s health-related development assistance to Africa. It identifies domestic politics as a constant, even critical, component in shaping and structuring China’s health aid to Africa.

Once thought to challenge only affluent countries, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are now the leading cause of death and disability in low-income and middle-income countries. International efforts should focus on specific NCDs and risk factors that are prevalent in poor working-age (younger than 60 years) people in low-income and middle-income countries, and for which there are low-cost interventions that can be integrated with existing global health platforms.

A SARS-like disease called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that kills a third of those it infects is suddenly, and mysteriously, surging inside Saudi Arabia. Laurie Garrett examines some of the possible causes and analyzes what steps need to be taken to prevent a global outbreak.

New shots are jeopardizing humanity's battle to eradicate polio, and they don't include syringes or vaccines. Rather, they're the gunshots of Islamic terrorists, and they're imperiling the fight to eliminate polio.

Yanzhong Huang, Patricia Moser, and Susann Roth discuss the key health challenges in the post-2015 development agenda for Asia and the Pacific, a highly populated, diverse region of countries with different health needs and priorities.

Thomas Bollyky describes the crisis emerging over access to treatment for diabetes, cancers, and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Bollyky argues that this crisis could transform the global response to NCDs as the last treatment access crisis transformed the international approach to HIV/AIDS.

Without a more transparent international research and information-sharing system, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) could spread far beyond the bounds of the region for which it is named, write Laurie Garrett and Maxine Builder.

Read Yanzhong Huang's chapter titled "Global Health,Civil Society, and Regional Security," in the book A Growing Force for Good: Civil Society's Role in Asian Regional Security, edited by Rizal Sukma and James Gannon.

Tikki Pang and Laurie Garrett argue that the World Health Organization is facing an unprecedented crisis that threatens its position as the premier international health agency, and to ensure its leading role, it must rethink its internal governance and revamp its financing mechanisms.